


Meet and Greet

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [48]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-01 13:11:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15774774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “Mom,” Bryce whines. “Jared doesn’t want to hear this.”“Jaredabsolutelywants to hear this,” Jared counters.





	Meet and Greet

Jared feels like July barely touches him before he’s facing down August. Training camp keeps creeping closer and closer, the passage of time marked only by the more and more frequent emails he gets from the Oilers, and like, the anniversary he totally forgot about. Jared thinks wistfully of the years and years summer dragged for him in a haze of nothing: no school, no hockey, unless his parents sprung for a hockey camp, which they often did. He wonders if that’s like, the definition of being an adult now: he blinks and fucking _weeks_ pass. If so, he doesn’t like it. 

There are things that are good about adulthood: his parents have relaxed curfew a lot, kind of trust him to be responsible about it. Which he is: if they’ve got training the next morning Jared will head out from Bryce’s early-ish, if they don’t, he’ll stick around later. He can legally drink? He hasn’t actually _done_ so, but he can now! Um. No more school? He didn’t hate it or anything, but it interfered with his lifelong goal to live and breathe hockey and only hockey. Bryce has also interfered with that, but he’s way better than school, so.

But back to terrible things: Jared gets a call from an Edmonton area code, and adulthood basically means he has to pick the damn thing up, even though a) talking on the phone is a living nightmare if Jared isn’t talking to immediate family or, like, the dude he’s in love with, and b) it’s from _Edmonton_. 

Doing the mature thing is awful and he hates it.

“Hey, this is Darryl,” a sneakily familiar voice says. “I got your number from front office, thought I should give you a call.”

Jared would like to do a whole ‘I have no idea who you are’, but he does know. Darryl Rogers is as close a thing as the Oilers have to‘the guy’, considering he grew up in the Edmonton area and, unlike most Oilers, doesn’t suck at hockey. He’s also basically the sole competent guy on the Oilers’ blueline, so Jared’s spent half his life cursing in his direction, pretty much.

“Uh, hi,” says Jared, master of words.

“Heard some good stuff about you from our coaching staff,” Rogers says. “Sounds like you did some solid work at the prospect camp.”

“Thank you?” Jared says faintly.

Jared’s probably like, the billionth prospect Rogers has called, doing the whole glad-handing thing, but you can’t tell listening to him. He doesn’t sound longsuffering or anything, doesn’t sound anything but genuine, and it’s weird.

Jared wraps up the call as quickly as he can, but not before Rogers tells him to call him Roge, which Jared refuses to ever do, and says he’s looking forward to seeing him at training camp and playing with him in the future.

Jared marches downstairs. “Darryl Rogers just called me,” he says.

“Well,” his mom says, looking up from a book. “That was nice of him.”

His dad makes a face. Jared makes a face right back at him. Sometimes he thinks his dad’s the only person who understands him.

Like, even _Bryce_ doesn’t seem to get where he’s coming from.

“He was so nice,” Jared complains at Bryce’s the next day.

Bryce looks amused. Jared doesn’t like it. “What’d you expect?” Bryce asks. “Him being all ‘hey dickhead, hear you grew up a Flames fan.’”

“Well, no,” Jared says. “But he didn’t have to be _nice_. I can’t hate a dude that nice, it just makes me look like an asshole. Stop smiling like that.”

“Like what?” Bryce asks, like he isn’t _very clearly_ doing the smile equivalent of laughing in Jared’s face.

“I know I’m being totally ridiculous,” Jared says. “But I’ve hated this dude since I was like, ten. He’s messing everything up.”

“You know, he _is_ your A now, so you should probably—” Bryce says, then actually laughing in his face when Jared claps his hands over his ears so he doesn’t have to listen to Bryce being all _reasonable_ at him. That is not Bryce’s role in Jared’s life. Bryce makes Jared want to do all sorts of unreasonable things despite himself, he’s not _allowed_ to be the reasonable one.

The next day Rogers sends him an email. Well, not Jared specifically, it’s a group one to all the prospects, it seems like — basically reiterating the welcome to ‘the Oilers Family’

Bryce laughs in his face again at his absolute dismay.

*

There are distressingly few days left before that training camp Rogers is ‘looking forward to seeing him at’. But before that is Bryce’s birthday, and before _that_ , Elaine comes breezing into town. Jared really never would have expected to be, like, excited to see his boyfriend’s mom, but he’s genuinely happy that she’s coming, and only some of that is because Bryce is visibly _so fucking happy_ about it. It’s sweet, how he doesn’t bother to hide it, attempt to play it cool, at least in front of Jared. Jared has never been that happy to see his parents in his life. Is he a bad son? Well, even if he is, he’s competing against Erin, so he automatically wins the best Matheson kid title.

Jared decides to let Elaine and Bryce have, like, some mother-son time alone when she gets in, even though Bryce keeps insisting Elaine said he was welcome. He’s sure she did, that sounds like something she would say, but like, he already took her kid away all summer, he doesn’t want to intrude on the time they do have together. That plan lasts two days before Bryce calls him and basically asks him where the hell he’s gone.

“I was giving you and your mom some space,” Jared says.

“Why?” Bryce asks blankly.

“I mean, she might want to hang out with just you,” Jared says. “I don’t want to get in the way of your time together or anything.”

“I told you,” Bryce says. “She totally keeps saying she’d like to see you.”

“Yeah, but—” Jared says.

“You don’t want to come over?” Bryce asks, sounding vaguely hurt. 

“Of course I do,” Jared says, and not just because Bryce sounds hurt: he finds he gets too, like, comfortable in the summer, with every day Bryce, and then they spend two days apart and Jared misses him a stupid amount. Adjusting to the season again is going to suck no matter where he ends up. “You want me to come over now?”

“We’re ordering Thai,” Bryce says, which is obviously a yes, because Jared loves Thai.

“Get me—”

“Green curry, I got you,” Bryce says. “You want the Tom Yum soup too?”

“Yeah,” Jared says. “Make sure—”

“I’m pretty sure they have ‘no shellfish’ like, written in red all over my order info by now,” Bryce says. “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure they don’t poison you.”

“Thanks, babe,” Jared says, and doesn’t realise the endearment’s left his mouth until he’s already hung up. Shit.

The food beats Jared there, because that place delivers like the wind, but they waited for him, and Elaine gives Jared one of her deceptively strong hugs, asks him so many questions about how he is, how he feels about being an Oiler, that he barely has a chance to eat. 

Not that he can do it well anyway: Jared is officially bad at eating. Jared’s never had a problem using chopsticks when it’s just him and Bryce, even though he’s kind of shitty at them, but Elaine and Bryce both use them more like extensions of their hands than utensils, while Jared drops a stupid piece of chicken three times before he gets it to his mouth. He’s worried Elaine’s going to be like ‘Bryce, the boy can’t even use chopsticks, rethink this relationship’ the second Jared leaves.

Elaine’s moved into asking him how his family is when Jared gives up on his curry to focus on his soup. At least he can’t screw up a _spoon_.

“I’d love to meet your family while I’m here,” she says, and that feels like — a lot, and kind of nerve-wracking, because who _knows_ if his family will behave — they probably won’t, Elaine will be lovely and the Mathesons will be a bunch of hobgoblins — but Jared texts his mom dutifully, because apparently he can’t say no to any Marcus, and Bryce inherited his beseeching eyes from his mom.

His parents are apparently both free tomorrow night. His mom helpfully adds that Erin is also free, and ‘looking forward to it’, the words imbued with menace. 

“You’re not busy tomorrow, are you?” Jared asks weakly. “Because that’s the only night that works for everyone.”

“That’s perfect,” Elaine says, reaching across the table and squeezing Jared’s hand.

“Yeah,” Jared mumbles, and hopes _so fucking hard_ his family won’t screw everything up.

“I was going to grab a drink with some friends,” Elaine says practically as soon as they’re finished eating. “I don’t want to cramp your boys’ style too much.”

Jared is like ninety-nine percent sure she’s totally doing this to give them…ahem…alone time again, and honestly, she could not be any more of an antithesis of Jared’s dad. Jared adores her. He really hopes his inability to eat doesn’t turn her against him.

“I didn’t know you had friends in Calgary,” Bryce says suspiciously, because apparently _he_ hasn’t figured out what she’s doing.

“You don’t know everything about me, Bear,” she says.

“Bear?” Jared asks.

“He was obsessed—” Elaine says, and then darts away as Bryce tries to clap a hand over his mouth. “ _Obsessed_ with Winnie the Pooh when he was a little—”

“Mom,” Bryce whines. “Jared doesn’t want to hear this.”

“Jared _absolutely_ wants to hear this,” Jared counters.

“We used to call him Pooh Bear, but—” Elaine says.

“Mom, you promised me you wouldn’t call me it in front of people anymore,” Bryce continues to whine.

“Jared isn’t people, he’s your boyfriend,” she says. 

“That’s even _worse_ ,” Bryce says, looking like he’s about a second away from stomping his foot like a little kid.

“He’s still got all the stuffed animals,” Elaine tells Jared in a conspiratorial tone. “The next time you’re in Vancouver, you’re totally welcome to come and see them. I also have the most _adorable_ pictures — we did a Winnie the Pooh themed party for his third birthday, hired someone to come in costume, you need to see his little _face_ when he saw Winnie.”

Bryce has totally given up trying to stop his mom and just looks dejectedly mortified now. It’s pretty cute, honestly.

Jared nudges his foot. “Cheer up, Pooh Bear, you’re starting to look more like Eeyore.”

“I hate both of you,” Bryce mumbles.

“He’s a bad liar,” Jared says to Elaine.

“He always has been,” she says. “Don’t wait up for me, okay Bear? Oh, and Jared, of course, you’re welcome to stay over, I really don’t want to put you out.”

“I have curfew, but thanks,” Jared says, and Elaine kisses both of them on the cheek before she leaves.

“Your mom’s going to be gone for at least a couple hours, Pooh Bear,” Jared says. “Wanna—”

“I don’t wanna _anything_ if you’re gonna keep calling me Pooh Bear,” Bryce mutters.

“No Winnie the Pooh kink?” Jared asks.

“ _Jared_ ,” Bryce says, sounding aghast, like Jared is defiling his childhood memories or something.

“No judgment,” Jared says. “If you need to admit something—”

“You’re the worst,” Bryce says.

Honestly, Jared’s shocked he gets laid that night. Well, kind of. A little. Bryce is kind of easy for him. They’re kind of easy for each other, really.

He is not shocked when Bryce elbows him in the side when he brings it up again in the middle of a handjob, though, and fully accepts that he deserves it.

*

The next evening, before they meet up with Bryce and Elaine for dinner, Jared gathers the troops for a sitrep. Also for some begging.

“Please be good,” Jared pleads. “Elaine’s really nice, I don’t want you embarrassing me.”

“Hey,” his dad says. “We’re not embarrassing.”

“And no, like, saying passive aggressive things about Bryce, please,” Jared says, not even bothering to counter that blatant falsehood.

“I wouldn’t insult a man in front of his mother,” his dad says, and Jared really hopes that’s true.

“And Erin,” Jared says.

Erin smirks.

There is nothing Jared can say that will make her behave, probably.

“I will tell Bryce about your crush on him,” Jared threatens.

Erin shrugs. “If he wants an upgraded Matheson — he clearly likes teenagers, so.”

“You’re horrible,” Jared says.

“Horrible’s _clearly_ not a dealbreaker for him,” Erin says.

“Mom,” Jared whines.

“Don’t call your sister horrible,” his mom says, which is _the opposite of helpful_.

“She implied I was horrible _too_ ,” Jared says.

“You’re both horrible,” his dad says. “And we’re going to be late.”

“I thought you wouldn’t insult a man in front of his mother,” Jared says. “And yet here you are, calling me horrible.”

“Aw,” his mom says. “He’s calling himself a man, Don. Our little boy.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Jared says.

He has a terrible, terrible feeling about tonight.

*

Jared doesn’t know if it was the begging, or his parents proving they can behave just to spite his fears, or the fact that Elaine is disarmingly friendly, but dinner is far less traumatic than Jared expected it would be.

Bryce arranged a private room, which seems a little ridiculous considering there are only six of them and it isn’t anyone’s birthday or anything, but it works out okay. Elaine does the exact same thing to his family she did with him: peppers them with questions until they relax. You wouldn’t expect that to be relaxing, but it doesn’t feel like an interrogation at all, just that Elaine is like, genuinely interested in you and all your answers.

After the waitress takes their orders, Bryce squeezes Jared’s knee under the table, and Jared revises his opinion of the private room. He drops his hand to grab Bryce’s, lace their fingers, and the two of them are like this safe little island, not really included in the conversation except for a few interjections. Jared holds on tight until the door opens, signaling the waitress is back, and then he finally drops Bryce’s hand.

Honestly, Jared loves Elaine more and more each minute, because she gets into such an in-depth conversation with his parents about some kind of stock or bond or whatever the hell Jared will probably one day figure out the importance of, but not yet, that his dad doesn’t even have a _chance_ to be passive-aggressive about Bryce. 

It’s kind of like the table’s been split into the adult boring talk about money side, and the kid’s side, Bryce doing kind of the same thing with Erin as Elaine’s doing with Jared’s parents, asking her about all her interests and stuff. Erin seems disarmed by it: Jared thinks she says more to Bryce over dinner than she says in a usual _week_ of dinners.

There’s a minor scuffle when Bryce tries to pay for everyone and his dad is clearly not willing to let that happen, ignoring Jared’s elbow and Erin’s hissed, “Dad, you’re being embarrassing.”

He doesn’t relent until Jared’s mom says, “He makes six and a half million dollars a year, Don, don’t turn this into a ridiculous pissing contest,”, so low Jared can barely hear her, and then he finally, begrudgingly, cedes the bill.

They part ways in the parking lot, Elaine handing out hugs for everyone — even Erin endures one stoically — and Jared’s dad actually shakes Bryce’s hand, though he looks kind of grumpy about it. Jared would honestly much rather go back with Bryce and Elaine, but he probably shouldn’t ditch his family after making them meet his boyfriend’s mom, so they head out once he gets one more hug from Elaine, a nod from Bryce, now that they’re in public.

“Elaine was very nice,” his mom says on the drive home. “Wasn’t she, Don?”

“Surprisingly,” his dad says. “She was.”

“Dad,” Jared says. “You said you wouldn’t be passive-aggressive about Bryce.”

“I think I said I wouldn’t be in front of his mother,” his dad counters.

“You did say that,” Erin pipes up very unhelpfully. Great, she’ll be all ‘I’m moody get the hell away from me’ to their parents literally every second except when Jared needs her to be that way. She senses his weakness, and she pounces.

“You have to quit at some point,” Jared says, and his dad gives him this look in the rear view mirror, like, _Do I? Do I really, Jared?_

“Ugh,” Jared says, and guesses he should consider it a win that they saved being hobgoblins for after they left.


End file.
